Playing with wire & fiber.....

More samples for the hands-on guild program I'm presenting in April. Just need to tweak the handout and I'm good to go. I'm still auditioning fibers so I can have an assortment for guild members to choose from. I suppose I should have taken some pictures so I could have posted the process......oh well....didn't think of it until now.

This novelty rayon is very fun, I've got several colors of it but tricky to work with since it wants to fray, also kind of hairy, although the photo doesn't show it. Underneath the fiber is a wire coil for structure. I decided this one needed a little curly bit at the bottom, kind of hard to do working with this craft wire, usually I make them using silver which is softer. After forming the curly I pound it flat on a metal jewelry board with a steel jewelry hammer. I added a glass bead to the top of my coil.

This was made with a fun novelty yarn with sparkles running through it. I used an antiqued gold wire.

Some fun rayon/wool novelty yarn, it also has some sparkle in it.

I don't care for these colors much but I wanted to try out this type of ribbon, it worked well.

This is a different brand of ribbon - love it. This matches the necklace I made last week. The wire coiler isn't long enough to wind a piece this long so Sam picked up a piece of steel and bent me a custom piece so I could make a bracelet.

This pair of earrings I used an 8/2 tencel, it worked, they have a nice sheen to them and I have a ton of colors to pull from for the program.

I thought I'd be getting back to the loom today but wait! I have to give a guild program in 4 weeks and I haven't done a thing other than get a smokin' deal on wire coilers for guild members - yikes!  So today I worked on a sample or two, measured out two different sizes of wire for each kit and put the wire coilers in bags to organize. I still need to work on some more samples and compose my handout. I'll teach fellow guild members how to make wire coiled beads from a workshop I took at the weaving conference last year. I received one of the scholarships the guild gave out which means I share something I learned there with the group in return. The goal is to use up some of those thrums we all generate while weaving.

This bead is made with one of those novelty rayon ribbons, I then twisted the same ribbon to make the necklace part

This is a novelty rayon/wool blend - I strung one of my gold necklaces through the bead

Another novelty wool/nylon/sparkle yarn

And this one is a metallic yarn although it's hard to tell in the photo, these beads are small